Skype outing fix for weird conversation forwarding bug

For some users Skype is crashing and forwarding chats to others.

Skype has said it will issue a fix for a strange issue, which forwards portions of IM chats on to other users in your contacts list, after the software has crashed.

The issue, first noticed by users across platforms this weekend, means messages you've sent to one contact could quite easily appear in IM boxes of your other friends or work colleagues.

As you can imagine, the consequences of this could be disastrous, especially if you've been using Skype to moan about those said friends or colleagues.

In a blog post, Skype said a fix is on the way this week, and that it believes the number of affected users is very small.

Very specific circumstances

The post reads: "The hotfix addresses an issue that occurs only when a user's Skype client crashes during a Skype IM session, which may in some cases result in the last IM entered or sent prior to the crash being delivered to a different IM contact after the Skype client is rebooted or logged in as a new user.

"Although we cannot determine precisely how many users may have been affected by this error, we believe the number is small given the very specific circumstances under which the error occurs."

The versions of the client experiencing the difficulties are, Skype 5.10 for Windows, Skype 5.8 for Mac, Skype 4.0 for Linux, Skype 1.2 for Windows Phone.

Skype is advising users to download the updated versions of the client when they become available. The Windows and Linux versions are already up for grabs here.

In the meantime, if you're using one of those versions of Skype, just be careful what you post.